So I was looking at this gorgeous piece here, a Doctor Who thingy, and I was reading the artist's comments, and they opened with this magnificent quote:

Look at the sky. It's not dark and black and without character... the black is, in fact, deep blue. And over there: lighter blue, and blowing through the blues and blackness the winds swirling through the air and then shining, burning, bursting through: the stars! And you see how they roar their light. Everywhere we look, the complex magic of nature blazes before our eyes.and i got really excited and inspired, and my sister was like "What's it like to be inspired?" and I told her, "It's like being run over by a train, and the only way to survive is to let it out." Which really made no sense, now that I think about it. XD

Seriously, go look at that Doctor Who piece. It's incredible XD I do the quote no credit. And no, this itself is not inspired by the painting. It's just the quote. XD

Oh look wallpaper! and HD!

Edit 12/23/12: Why is this so popular?! I've NEVER gotten over 500 views on a space art piece, but this... 1000? XD

This piece took me about three hours' worth of playing with saved fractals on my old computer (in fact, the very same ones I used for my Knot Nebula picture), adjusting noise, filling in blank space with seemingly pointless scribbling, and daubing with big fuzzy brushes XD I had a hard time getting the noise for the background stars just right, considering that I actually screwed up and forgot to put it in first, but I think it worked (:

Honestly, I scribble XD Thin brushes and such, give it a layer with a blur filter (actually, to achieve these colours, what I do is I paint my base colour on a coloured background, and then add all the details using a black layer set to colour dodge (i think?) and painting on it in white.) and add stars using a noise technique and a few bright fuzzy brushes on linear dodge c: Merge the whole thing and auto sharpen it twice, and it produces these results.

Yeah, I felt kinda silly telling her about that (since most people are normally dead when a train hits them...) but it was the only thing that even made sense at the time >.> Thank you, thanks for commenting too

Heeeeeeeeee thank you <3 And I don't use the same program for this as I use to make fractals XD I think you were asking about a fractal... I forget XD You were the 7X link I gave last, right?I use just plain ol' Photoshop for this, but I don't take photos, don't worry I just... goof around, fiddle with all the buttons that I have no idea how to use, and viola, this... happens XD that's how I end up with things that aren't so great but that I feel compelled to upload anyways, and then masterpieces like this and Ordinance. XD

So, what you are saying is that you made this by just messing around in photoshop? How. Is. This. Possible. Hehe, I'm so bad at messing around in photoshop to make a masterpiece, usually it ends up really screwed up. Teach me your ways. (:

XD I don't have many ways tbh o.o When I first started photoshop space art, I was a total neophyte (understandably) to the art thing, having been a poet/writer for much of my life and having absolutely no artistic skill whatsoever, but with a bit of practice and a couple of years I gradually built up to where I am now. I usually build up layers (much like one would with coloured pencils or graphite) and merge them all when I'm finished and I always screw around with the layer settings (opacity, styles), since there's a huge difference that can be made with overlay and screen options XD